He had never realized how much he had taken on the role of mentor— father, brother, friend, all were duties undertaken, willingly or otherwise, with some manner of acknowledgement of their weight. Each was a burden and blessing, their shadows giving him both pause and strength in equal measure, and, aye, the light that it shone upon him was not so bad either.

Yet, in his mind he had still remained an apprentice, no matter how much taller he’d grown, how intimately familiar with the greatsword’s heft he’d become. Even as he took Eithne under his wing, so to speak, even as he taught her everything he knew, it had all been under the guise of comrades: a brotherhood forged in the abyss, a burgeoning warmth in the emptiness Fray had left in his wake.

It is only when she's returned from gods knew where, hair cut short, golden eyes brimming with a flame she'd always claimed had been long extinguished, that he is able to put a name to the emotion that threatened to overwhelm him. Not anger, not bitterness, not even grief— but pride, noble and true, warm enough to keep even the Ishgardian winter at bay.

“You fought and you fought and you fought...and in the end, you won the day.”

He had given her a part of him, just as Ser Ompagne had unto him on that scarlet stained day, and to see it flourish filled him with enough joy to shatter the cool facade, forcing his voice to rise and tremble with the strength of it.

“That faraway land and her people live on because you all were willing to fight to the bitter end─because you were too stubborn to die.”

There was no greater honor for a Dark Knight, and no greater hero to call his friend.

(And, for the evening, he’ll pretend to forget Rielle’s comments of moogles and love...)

So it is not so surprising to him when next they fight alongside each other, to see her surpass him in ways he could never have conceived.

It was a hunt mark, a fabled horned yeti by the name of Mirka. Despite the legend behind it, the creature was a younglin, and it seemed nothing out of the ordinary for him, just enough work to put food on the table for a couple of weeks. Still, she insisted on coming, and he found no reason to deny her— if all she asked of him after saving two realms was a spot of hunting, all the better for Sid.

The beastkin rears its head, horn aglow with unknown magicks, and Sidurgu unsheathes his weapon, enters a familiar stance— until Eithne uses her greatsword, a thin and shiny thing seemingly made to better suit her size, to stop him in his tracks.

“Not so fast.” Familiar, those words, though Sidurgu is unsure why; he’s never heard them from her before. “I want you to see all that I’ve learned.”

Well, her time away had certainly made her more proactive.

He doesn’t know what to expect, as the shadows ‘neath her feet coalesce into another, its shape amorphous and elusive, and yet distinctly his. He feels the tremble in his heart as the tendrils of the abyss mold her stalwart ally from the darkness itself, from the depths arising one of the only people that had ever felt like family. It moves slowly at first, a weight to its steps despite its lack of tracks on the snow, before it surges forward along with Eithne, footsteps dancing in tandem.

Light and dark, living and dead— Eithne as one and as two.

The fight takes much longer than it feels like, half a bell passing by before him as if mere minutes, but nevertheless it is defeated much more swiftly than if he’d been alone. He bears witness to it, eyes wide, his breath coming in jagged and shallow, as if he feared it would interrupt her, interrupt this dance.

The beast slain, the shade kneels, with its red eyes staring out into the expanse— and then it is gone, shadows melting and returning to their rightful place underfoot.

Eithne seems to swoon after, but as he runs towards her, she outstretches her sword once again.

“I’m— fine. I-It’s the first time I have summoned Esteem for so long, is all.”

Esteem, is that what she called it?

“It... Was it...?” How frustrating, to lose his composure at a time like this.

“I don’t know.” He thought he would feel resentment, hearing that, but there is a strange warmth in his chest. Not a simulacra, not the desperate clawing for a past that can never return, then. She smiles, “It simply was, when I needed them most.”

It was Eithne looking into the abyss and seeing it as a knight with arms outstretched, a brother with a fire in his breast— a legacy, everlasting.